


Room For Two: Bravado

by multishep



Category: League of Legends
Genre: F/F, Piltover's Finest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-26 12:40:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,962
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15663414
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/multishep/pseuds/multishep
Summary: Standalone sequel to Room for Two. Caitlyn tries to ride Vi's motorcycle on her own in secret.





	Room For Two: Bravado

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Caitlin watched the second hand of the wall mounted clock above the doorway with narrowed eyes and the kind of scrutiny she usually reserved for suspects and bad liars. Elbow on the desk and chin resting on her fist, her body language spoke of absent minded boredom but the fidgety clicking of the pen in her other hand said stress. Distraction.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Just her and the clock tracking the seconds until a certain anomaly was scheduled to happen like, well, clockwork. The other staff bustling about the precinct, the half dozen phones ringing, and the cacophony of complaining citizens and placating officers weren't a part of her world then. At exactly 9 o'clock and not a second later, a head of pink hair attached to a uniformed body sporting gauntleted hands skipped through the doorway.

Vi's tuneless whistling ceased only so she could toss a greeting in the form of "Hey, Boss!" her way before merrily taking a seat at her designated work space in the bullpen perpendicular to Caitlyn's larger one.

Caitlyn had an office but didn't like how isolated and unapproachable it made her so she did most of her work at the desk immediately outside her door where her assistant would be if she had one, and only used the room for conversations and work that required more discretion. When she’d first started doing so the chatter in the bullpen had been noticeably awkward and lacking, her detectives uneasy about bantering with the boss within earshot. But she never had a problem with her officers chatting so long as they got their work done and over time they all came to realize that she appreciated the camaraderie and open communication, and it made her more "one of the guys" than when she sat behind the glass door and windows of her private office.

It's been two weeks since Vi had bought the precinct a patrol bike and then promptly commandeered it as her own, and since then she'd been coming to work _on time_. She was even early once and Caitlin had to slap herself in the restroom to make sure she wasn't actually dreaming. No one else seemed to notice this strange phenomenon, but Caitlin did. Caitlyn, the Sheriff of Piltover noticed all of her staff's comings and goings, but Caitlin, Girlfriend of Vi, definitely noticed when her reputably tardy partner in more ways than one appeared to have gotten her act together overnight. When they'd first moved in together, she’d quickly discovered on a day off where Vi was working that the woman needed an alarm clock of the megaphone variety to get up in the morning. Vi had even admitted once that she liked to come late just to piss her off since Caitlin's shift started two hours before Vi's did.

So the first time Vi had waltzed through the door with seconds to spare before she was scheduled to start, Caitlin shrugged it off as something that was bound to happen eventually. But when the same thing happened again on the next day she was convinced she was witnessing a small miracle. Two weeks of that and she didn't know what to think, only that the damn bike must’ve had something to do with it. She didn't believe in coincidences. Especially not when it came to Vi.

Maybe Vi was afraid she'd actually take it away. Caitlin wouldn't do that of course because Vi had been right in that she needed her ownspeedy way to get around, but she would never tell her that. It would also break her heart and even though Caitlin was the best of the best when it came to not letting their relationship affect their work, Vi had made her a touch soft. But she would never tell her that, either.

It didn't bother her that Vi was now punctual, the reasonable part of her felt the opposite. No, she was irritated that one little bike could do overnight what she couldn't over two whole years of trying. Vi was even coming home later than usual now, taking the scenic route and claiming terrible traffic but more than likely enjoying some alone time with her new death trap. Caitlin wanted an excuse to leave the thing at the precinct for other shifts to use but no other officers could ride it and few had any interest in giving it a go. Like her, they preferred their method of transportation to have at least four wheels and a roll cage during high speed chases.

Vi had jokingly called her “jealous” and though she’d managed to play it off as ridiculous, the words left her bothered. She was _not_ jealous. Just simply concerned for the safety of her officers and the department's budget. She'd uncharacteristically put up little to no resistance in the purchase of the bike and within the week had received multiple requests for brand new cruisers and even an armoured tank from the other officers. There were a healthy number of pranksters in her precinct—Vi tended to bring that side out in people—but she had a feeling that last request wasn’t exactly a joke.

Vi looked up from reading the day's briefs, her comically tiny reading glasses pinched between her enormous metal fingers, and caught her staring.

"See something you like, Boss?" she asked, pausing to lean back in her chair and crossing her hands behind the back of her head, causing her button up shirt to become untucked just a little bit.

Caitlin hummed in disapproval at Vi's tendency to flirt with her at work, a habit the bike had apparently left unaffected. While their relationship was no secret, favouritism could easily ruin the respect she'd earned from her officers. But she couldn't quite bring herself to call Vi out on it with a reprimand like she usually did because on top of ceasing her tardiness, her partner had also been noticeably more focused on the less glorious administrativeside of the job as well.

"Yes, you actually _working_ ," she retorted, getting a chuckle out of Vi who promptly resumed her reading with a smile on her face.

With their morning banter out of the way, they got back to work, Vi slowly but surely getting through her overdue reports and Caitlyn fielding her officers for domestic calls and debriefing returning ones. By 11 o'clock, Caitlyn was hungry enough to step away from her revolving door of a desk to go in search of food.

She was usually able to hold out until Vi went for lunch so they could go together but she'd skipped breakfast and Vi had apparently gained enough momentum to get lost in her work. Not wanting to interrupt, Caitlyn quietly slipped out the door and took the stairs down five flights to the parking garage. Her outdated cruiser was in her usual reserved space some short steps away but despite seeing it every day now for two weeks, she wasn't quite used to the white mechanical bull on wheels parked next to it.

She stopped to look at it. _Really_ look at it now that she was able to take her time without Vi beside her going on and on about gear and compression ratios and how _naked_ the bike was, whatever the hell that meant. _"Listen to this baby purr, Cait!"_ Honestly, with how often the words "shaft", "naked", "lubricant", and " _piston_ " were thrown around, it was no wonder Caitlyn would be happy to see the thing go... to the bottom of the ocean.

Whatever appeal it held to her was largely attributed to the woman who rode it, but hmm...

Squint.

Poke.

It was surprisingly larger than she remembered up close and reminded her of a Shuriman camel the way its seat dipped dramatically behind the fuel tank. Its pearl white body was wonderfully accented by the black leather seat, side panels, mirrors, engine cover, and alloy wheels as well as the partially exposed aluminum frame that was a deep grey in colour.Silver bolts stood out among the black and grey in a way that was far from displeasing, and the only exceptions to the monochromatic bike were the red tail lights, shock coil, and police lights. There was a balance between covered and exposed chassis, giving it a solid and slightly bulky look up top and a sleeker look on the bottom. Piltovian steel lay beneath the glossy paint and was cold to the touch.Molded sharp edgesresembling Z’s on the front and sides hinted at its raw power and made it as aesthetically pleasing as it probably was aerodynamic. She couldn’t make sense of the diverging and convergingtubes leading to and from the exposed engine any more than she could say whether the holes and bolts that outnumbered them ten to one were really necessary.

Okay, so _maybe_ it really could be sexy all on its own. Especially beside her cruiser.

A careful glance around confirmed that she was alone. She knew better. If she had a dollar for every person booked for driving without a license in her tenure as warden, she'd have enough petty cash to buy that armoured tank. But this was technically a police vehicle and she'd driven a manual car before... once. How different or hard could it be? She'd take the motorcycle out to grab a quick bite and then come right back. She'd see for herself that the thing was nothing special and that Vi was wrong about it not being the same as riding a bicycle. The novelty would eventually wear off and no one has to know.

Vi had left her helmet locked to the frame with a combination lock but Caitlyn simply put in the four digits representing her own month and day of birth and it clicked open easily. She'd once given Vi a long lecture on how it was unsafe to use her own date of birth as a password for everything so Vi had promptly changed it to _Caitlyn's_ instead. It was only a baby step up in security but it warmed her heart as much as the helmet did her head when she squeezed it on. It wasn’t heavy, but she felt oddly unbalanced.

She swung a leg over the seat but since she wasn't the tallest person in town had to half jump half haul the rest of herself up the short distance. Finding she couldn't properly plant both feet flat on the ground, she settled for teetering on the balls of her feet while supporting the weight of the bike. Good enough.The side stand was easily kicked back and up and she gave herself a mental pat on the back for getting Vi into the habit of reverse parking their vehicles.

Caitlyn stuck her spare key in and turned it on. She checked her mirrors before engaging the clutch on her left then pressed the start button with her right thumb. The motorbike roared to life and thundered loudly when she rolled on the throttle, still in neutral. The sound was exhilarating rather than obnoxious now that she was actually sitting in the driver’s seat and she gave a surprised laugh inside her helmet which didn’t mute as much outside noise as she thought it would. Still stationary, her heart was beating in her ears as if she were already moving. She found the gear shifter under her left foot and pressed down all the way to shift from neutral to first gear, sending a silent thanks to Vi for getting it in her head that on a bike, neutral was actually between first and second. Down one, up five (usually).

She took her time releasing the clutch and slowly rolled out of the parking space before adding throttle and accelerating to a speed fast enough to keep her balance but still revving too low to get into second gear. She smoothly navigated her way through the garage and as a timid first-time rider, her eyes spent just as much time on the gauges as they did on the road. Taking extra care on that last corner, she looked up to see the ramp that would take her to ground level and outside on the other end looking a lot closer and dramatically steeper than she knew it to be in a car.

She wasn't going fast enough to tackle the ramp at anything more than a crawl which was far from ideal. If she couldn't pick up speed, she would slow and could lose her balance halfway up, and if she couldn't support the weight of the bike, especially on a ramp, they would both end up on the ground and _she_ wasn’t made of metal.

She rolled heavily on the throttle, hearing the bike's immediate and explosive growl and saw the tachometer spike below as she accelerated to a speed appropriate to upshift. She had three quarters of the length of the garage left before she was on the ramp and went through the motions to shift to second as quickly as her inexperienced brain and limbs would allow. Close throttle, squeeze clutch, shift up.

Half the distance left.

Roll throttle, release clutch.

Careful not to do either too quickly or suddenly, she successfully shifted into second and continued to accelerate. Patting herself on the back for being such a quick learner, she was in third before her front wheel hit the base of the concrete ramp but wasn't as careful this time to accelerate slowly. She didn't realize she'd completely overcompensated for the angled ground until they won their very brief fight against gravity and friction and she was suddenly rocketing upwards, too stiff with shock and fear to roll off the throttle or use the brakes in time.

It didn't take long for Caitlyn to remember that faster speed meant shorter distance to cover. She was reminded of this lesson when, at the top of the ramp, she was launched into some unsolicited airtime. Screeching the whole way down, she was about to thank her maker for the safe landing only to curse it to seven different hells instead when she saw the boom barrier just two car lengths away, the only thing between her and the outside world.Her approach had been too fastidious and she realized too late that she could’ve made it up in first, slowly but surely, on a bike with plenty of displacement.

Even if she hadn’t completely flown over the sensors at the top of the ramp, Caitlyn doubted the boom bar would’ve had enough time to fully rise and let her through at the speed she was going. Fingers clamped down on her brake lever, she managed to at least slow down a bit before the padded metal bar cracked through her plastic windshield, the only part of the bike that wasn’t able to clear the gate, and hit her square in the chest, knocking her backwards and off the bike that continued its way outside without her. She landed on her back and had the wind knocked right out of her before finishing her backwards roll by flopping onto her front.

Imitating a starfish on her stomachon the ground, Caitlyn tried to suck some air back into her lungs with the bar hanging over her torso like a guillotine. Black spots appeared and disappeared in all corners of her vision even though her eyes were clenched in an attempt to keep her head from spinning. Even with a helmet on, getting clotheslined off of a moving vehicle by a metal bar—padded or not—meant to stop exactly that could easily haveleft anyone twice or thrice her size in much worse condition. Once she was able breathe normally again and was confident she hadn’t punctured a lung, she rolled herself into recovery position, groaning loudly along the way more out of catharsis than pain. And there was a lot of pain.

After taking inventory of her body, Caitlyn concluded that nothing was obviously broken but she might be bluer than her uniform. Had the bar been just one or two inches higher, she would be kissing her beautiful collarbones and shoulders goodbye. Luckily, if she could call it luck, a few bruises and having to say “ow” with every bit of movement wasn’t the end of the world. The inelegant landing left every other part of her sore, namely her back, hips, knees, and elbows, but it was preferable to a full body cast or, y’know, death.With something between a groan and _“fuuuuuck,”_ she was able to pull herself into a sitting position and dragged herself up using the oh-so-helpful bar above her. The ringing in her ears hadn’t completely gone away and suddenly she feared that a concussion was a real possibility.

She looked around for Vi's beloved and spotted it flat on its side. The bike had carried so much forward momentum that it had made it a good distance before swerving into a parking meter without a rider to steer it. Caitlyn hurried to turn it off before setting it upright.Upper body feeling heavy, Caitlyn yanked the helmet off, taking deep breaths of outside air and steadying herself with one hand on the scratched-up bike. She clamped her eyes shut for a moment, willing the pounding in her head to go away but knew that nothing would change once she opened them again.

The green ticketing machine had a large dent in its side, white streaks from the paint transfer, and stood on a slight angle but otherwise would live to see another day. Vi's bike, however, would require a small miracle to hide the dents so concave they looked like they were inflicted by Vi’s gauntletsas well as the deep scratches along its side from where it had skidded along the ground.

Deeply loving and committed relationship or not, Vi was going to kill her.

"Hey, Captain."

Caitlyn whirled around to see a young woman carrying an armload of takeout bags from the deli down the street where her precinct regularly got lunch delivered from. As the owner's daughter, delivering orders wasn't usually her job to do until the day she’d been forced to make the short walk with Caitlyn's lunch order after the delivery boy had called in sick. After that, Caitlyn never saw the other boy again and every order requiring delivery to the precinct would earn her some sort of forced small talk with the girl and the usual incorrect greeting, whether or not she'd actually gotten any food.

Vi called it a crush, Caitlyn called it inappropriate. The girl was half her age if she was being generous. She couldn’t even remember her name and was too afraid that something as polite as asking for it would be taken the wrong way. When she'd corrected the girl that her title was actually Sheriff or Warden rather than Captain, her only response had been a wink and an "I know." So, Caitlyn never corrected her again.

"Oh, hey," she said a little too enthusiastically, trying not to be too conspicuous. In what she hoped was a subtle move, Caitlyn stepped forward to draw attention away from the beat-up motorcycle, but something as "cool" and "badass" to a teenager as a bike was hard to hide, especially since she didn't exactly cut a physically imposing figure.

"I didn't know that you ride," the girl exclaimed, stretching her neck for a better look around her paper bags and Caitlyn's body.

"Hmm? Oh, yeah, this old thing?" Caitlyn looked over her shoulder to see that the front and scratched up side was just barely out of view from their angle and breathed a sigh of relief. "Just... borrowing it from a friend." She mentally slapped herself. It didn't take an enthusiast to recognize that the otherwise gleaming bike was fresh out of the factory and anything but _old_.

"Oh... okay. Still cool, though."

"Yeah, thanks."

The girl shifted, remembering all the food in her hands and decided that it was best not to keep a bunch of hungry officers waiting, even if alone time with the "Captain" was very rare.

"Are any of these yours?" she asked, raising the bags of sandwiches.

"No," Caitlyn tried her best to sound apologetic. "I already ate," she lied, though her mouthful of fresh concrete sure was an appetite killer.

"Okay then, see you around, Captain."

"Yep."

Once the girl and her sandwiches were safely inside the building, Caitlyn whirled around to glare at the damaged bike, wanting to give it a kick but knowing full well she would lose that fight even in its sorry condition.

Her options were few and all ended with Vi either being upset with her or just flat out dumping her, and having (thankfully) never experienced either, she wasn't sure which was worse.

At the very least she'd broken the law. She wasn't likely to lose her job given her reputation and the fact that nobody else had gotten hurt and her only collateral had been the parking meter—she didn't even scratch the boom gate—but she was very likely to lose face. This sort of thing was Vi's MO and scolding Vi was hers. She pretty much had just given every officer a free pass to commit mischief and mayhem since punishing them for it would make her a hypocrite. An officer breaking the law didn't set a good example. A _commanding_ officer who broke the law was barely a tier above a fish that drowned.

She very well couldn't deny it was her. There were high definition security cameras all over. If by some miracle she couldn't be recognized, like hell Vi would let this sort of thing go unanswered for. Even without the investigative manpower and resources of a police precinct to back her, Caitlyn had seen Vi hunt down many perpetrators with nothing more to go by than colour of their hair using only good ol' fashioned verbal inquiry. Caitlyn had the only spare key and now she also had a witness. Bribery would only add to her mountain of really big problems and she didn't even want to _think_ about what that delivery girl would ask for in return for silence. And needless to say, Vi knew her body better than the back of her own hand. The footage could've been filmed on a toaster and Vi would still know it was her, so denying it was out of the question and getting rid of it would only rouse suspicion that it was an inside job.

She couldn't wait for Vi to notice the damage before she could explain herself either or the whole precinct would know about it. Maybe she could get someone else to take the blame. If it was a believable enough confession then there would be no need to turn to the cameras for hard evidence. But it just wasn't in her to send a poor innocent to their death. _Desperate times, Caitlyn..._ A convicted felon maybe?

"Damn it." Never in a million years would she seriously consider such injustice. Maybe she really was concussive.

Her only option was to come clean and do it right away. Maybe Vi would dump her on the spot, but she wouldn't run her mouth and ruin Caitlyn's reputation like that. Caitlyn truly believed she wouldn't. She might have a broken heart but at least she'd still have an income and a career.

She looked at her watch. It had only been 20 minutes so she wasn't due back for another forty, but lunch-goers were already starting to trickle out of the building and she wanted to keep her list of witnesses short. Caitlyn jammed the helmet back on her head for the purpose of discretion but kept it unsecured and almost crumpled with relief when the bike was able to start with no discernible problems. Keeping it in neutral, she walked it the entire way back to its spot. Going down the ramp made her further aware of all the injured parts of her body that hadn’t been hurting already. Even if Vi didn't leave her, her only position in bed for the next while would be purely anatomical.

For obvious reasons Caitlyn opted to take the elevator up the five floors rather than the stairs. The walk back to her desk was what she imagined walking to the gallows would be like minus a ball and chain. She couldn't remember the last time she'd gotten into trouble. Even as a child she never really gave her parents a hard time, never went through a "rebellious phase". Having to wait outside the headmistress' office while they discussed her actions and consequences with her parents wasn't an experience she'd ever had, though she heard plenty about it from the other kids. It was a childhood rite of passage she’d had no interest in partaking. Her adult life had been no different. Caitlyn rarely made mistakes and even if she was the type to give herself a harder time for any slipups than any superior would, alas she was her own boss.

The accident was something out of a lucid dream, a waking nightmare. Maybe over the years Vi had finally achieved what she'd promised to do when they'd first met and made Caitlyn "unclench and loosen up" (not like that) by rubbing off on her (again, not like that.) Caitlyn was used to cleaning up after Vi and though having the woman as both her police partner and life partner could be more work than she'd bargained for at times, she had perceptibly more fun with Vi in her life. The sun was always brighter, her laughter a little louder, and how did she repay Vi? By destroying the only other thing she's ever loved. Really, those were her words.

When she reached the very door she'd watched Vi waltz through that morning, she stopped her stiff walk and tried to ignore the sharp pains in the various parts of her body and walk as normally as possible.

Vi was on her feet, chair pushed back from her desk and fists in the air, back arched in a big stretch with an accompanying yawn.

"Hey, sweetheart," Caitlyn greeted.

Vi froze mid stretch and cracked one dubious eye open. Pet names were her thing and Caitlyn usually only called her "sweetheart" when she was trying to placate her, and never in the office.

"Whatsup, Cait?" she asked in return. It would've been a little cold to answer "sweetheart" with "Boss" like she usually used when they weren't in private.

Caitlyn gestured for Vi to follow her into the office. Even though she rarely used it, she was glad to have a soundproof room for times when she did need it. She could feel the eyes of everyone in the bullpen on her and knew it wasn't just her imagination. The office may have been sound proof but it wasn't view proof with its floor to ceiling window view of the city and its glass door and windows on the opposite side facing the bullpen. The fact that she only used it for high profile meetings or to really make an officer feel small made any use of the office hard to escape notice. She couldn't look Vi in the eyes when she asked her to shut the door behind her but leave the blinds open.

Caitlyn had a chair behind the grand desk but chose to informally lean against it instead since she’d inadvertently convinced Vi that she was in big trouble when really it was the opposite.

"What's wrong, Cait?" Vi asked, thumbs hooked in her utility belt, looking more authoritative than Caitlyn felt. She was ready to defend either herself against Caitlyn's accusations or Caitlyn from whatever had her wound so tightly.

"Please, have a seat."

It took a half convincing smile for Vi to resignedly lower herself into one of the two chairs in front of Caitlyn.

Caitlyn wanted to take her hands but was mindful of half the office watching them so crossed her arms over her chest instead.

"You know I love you right?" she asked.

Vi had never looked so confident. "Of course."

"And that I respect you,"

"Yeah."

"And your belongings."

"Mm hmm."

So far so good.

"And that I would never do anything to hurt you or really anything stupid for that matter but I don't know what came over me and I was actually doing really well at the beginning but then the ramp and the bar and the parking meter and the delivery girl—" Caitlyn said in one breath, the last half incoherently. She had to stop to take in much needed air but Vi was back on her feet again and rubbing the sides of her arms and shoulder to get her to calm down.

"Whoa, easy there, Cait!"

Caitlyn bit her lip to keep her frustration and shame from boiling over.

Vi hugged her, spectators be damned. "Whatever it is, it's okay."

These feelings, they didn't happen often, and to someone on the outside, they didn't happen to her ever. But she was only human and since Vi was the only one who ever got to see this side of her, she was the only one who could keep her world from rotating too quickly on its axis whenever she got like this. It was a little known fact that Vi was actually really good at it, too. Everything was going to be okay. Nothing but empty words had they came from someone else, but from Vi it was a promise that she would _make_ things okay. So, she finally nodded and Vi let her go but stayed close and made sure she took a couple more deep breaths.

"So what happened? Slowly this time."

Here goes.

"Your bike," Caitlyn admitted. "I crashed it."

Vi took a step back looking as if she wasn't sure if she'd heard correctly.

"You rode my bike?"

"Yes."

"And you _crashed_ it?"

Caitlyn winced. "Yes."

Once again Vi was right in front of her, this time lifting one arm and then the other trying to peek underneath her sleeves which she had rolled up to her elbows.

Caitlyn swatted Vi away when she reached to untuck the front of her shirt. "Vi, _what are you doing?!_ "

"Checking you for injuries," Vi replied as if it were obvious before dropping to one knee and attempting to roll up her pant leg.

Caitlyn hooked a finger into Vi's collar and gently brought her back up, wanting more than ever to kiss her right then and there. That Vi would care more about her injuries than the damage to the bike shouldn’t have been surprising, but how anyone could love her the way Vi did was news to her every day. She could never have enough of the ways it showed.

"I'm fine."

"You're not hurt?"

"I feel like a dropped peach but you should see the other guy," Caitlyn tried to joke.

Though still skeptical, Vi would have to take Caitlyn's word that it wasn't serious and wait until they got home to see the full extent of her injuries.

"Okay. Want to come with?"

 _Not really_ , but Caitlyn nodded anyway. For the same reason she would cover her eyes during horror movies but still watch through her fingers, she wanted to be there when Vi saw the damages. She didn't like second-hand accounts and preferred to see things for herself. At least if she was there she could explain the unfortunate chain of events rather than leave it to Vi's overactive imagination.

So she did her stiff walk back to the elevator where Vi put an arm around her waist and left it for the remainder of their journey down to P1 and their reserved parking spaces. Vi was trying to play it off as a casual romantic gesture but Caitlyn knew she was afraid she might collapse at any moment from her imaginary broken bones. She didn't complain or shrug her off though because it was reassuring and she appreciated the thoughtfulness.

When they arrived to where her cruiser and Vi's bike was parked, she wasn't sure if the damage was glaringly obvious because she knew where to look or because it was so bad a blind mouse could've called her out. Vi sucked in a breath when she saw it but stayed firmly attached to her side, her arm around Caitlyn's shoulder now.

Caitlyn rolled her eyes and nudged her forward.

Permission attained, Vi rushed forward to inspect every detail. She circled the bike twice, hands so careful and eyes so close Caitlyn thought if she had a magnifying glass on her she wouldn't hesitate to use it. She'd seen surgeons inspect wounds with less care than this.

Finally, with the kind of dramatic flair Caitlyn had expected from the very start, Vi fell to her knees and tried to embrace as much of its length as her arms would allow with her bottom lip jutted out so far Caitlyn could've tripped over it.

Vi looked at her with buggy wet eyes in accusation.

Caitlyn crossed her arms and bit her lip again, but this time to keep herself from laughing at the scene unfolding before her. If Vi wasn't already mad, laughing at her would certainly ensure it. She schooled her face and apologized–for the first time, she realized. "I'm sorry."

Vi gave her a sober smile and stood, dusting off her knees. "It's replaceable," she shrugged.

Caitlyn hugged herself tighter. She had been so afraid that Vi would react badly when really she should've given her more credit than that. Feeling awful that she'd underestimated her, Caitlyn almost wanted there to be consequences. Did anything make sense anymore?

"You can be mad, Vi," she said.

"I know," Vi replied. She stepped in front of Caitlyn and cupped the back of her neck, bringing their foreheads together. "And I _am_. I'm mad that you didn't come to me and got yourself hurt, but more than anything I'm just glad you're okay."

"Oh, sweetheart," Caitlyn whispered. She was wrong to think the bond they shared could've been broken by a few scratches and dents. That someone like Vi, who knew just how she liked her coffee in the morning, who stayed late with her whenever there was extra work to do just to enjoy her company, who never stopped coming up with new ways, big and small, to show her love, would ever put her second. For Vi, it wasn't enough to just say it. Words anyone can speak, but mountains only the most patient winds can move.

Caitlyn kissed her. She drew Vi in close, closer, by her hips, her waist, her hair, until there was no space left between them. She let her tongue, lips, and teeth make up for the words she couldn't find . They were speaking in another language now and she was a poet whose lyric was only for Vi. She didn't know if she could ever be as good at erasing doubt, or if Vi even had any. But she was letting her know through her lips alone that she believed in them, that she was thankful to have found the kind of love she didn't think would ever happen to her.

When they finally broke apart, it was Vi's turn of the day to struggle for air. "I should get mad more often," she joked, earning herself a swat to the bicep. "So how far did you get?" Vi was looking at the bike again, arms around Caitlyn's waist and Caitlyn's a little lower on her.

Caitlyn saw only Vi. "Really damn far."


End file.
